ENOCH NUWAMANYA
CACHA MEDICAL CAMP, MY BEST EXPERIENCE Well, 27 th of March 2023 is one of the amazing days I will never forget in my medical career life. Unlike other days, as early as 6:00 a number of patients was already flowing in the facility premises. The numbers were overwhelming to an extent that the usual seats were not enough for them, not even a half of them could be accommodated by our usual facility seats. Early in the morning our village health team coordinators were already helping our patients to make long organized queues and registration kicked off. To patients this was a very great opportunity, a number of their health problems would be attended to. To us the health workers, it was our time to shine, indeed, we were happy that we would work on many clients unlike the usual ones. We were also thrilled that we would attend to a number of health conditions. Everyone on our team was more than ready for this great challenge.
Little did we know that this was going to be the daily norm for the following eight days. The second day was more less the same. The number of patients was almost doubling every day and well, this meant a great challenge to the medical team and the organizers. In that medical camp, it’s when I got to know that a number of people can be with some chronic illnesses unattended to for quite a number of years, something that’s very sad and dangerous. I remember working on several patients whose illnesses had been there untreated for quite long time. The reasons patients could give as to why their diseases were
not attended to included lack of medical funds, long distances to health facilities etcetera.
Our patients were grouped according to categories of diseases they had. We had various stations with different specialists. These included Gynecology, General Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, Eye etcetera. This made our work easy and the flow of patients was organized. Some stations had health workers from Canada and they worked along with Ugandans who helped in translation. Personally I ran the obstetrics and gynecology clinic. I worked along with a team of midwives. We had the opportunity to work on various cases of this kind. Patients received the best care and attention and most of their ailments were worked upon.
As Albert Einstein once said, ‘only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile’, indeed, the CACHA team fulfilled this philosopher’s saying. The love and care shown to us was really great and very amazing. May God bless you beyond measure. Despite the busy schedule we had, the camp went well. Our patients were very grateful for the wonderful services rendered to them. Personally, I learnt a lot during the camp and I had the best experience ever. Great thanks to our CACHA sponsors and to everyone who made it possible for the camp to run well. We are looking forward to seeing you again.
ENOCH NUWAMANYA MEDICAL CLINICAL OFFICER GGOLI HEALTH CENTRE